This Saturday night, the Caedmon Hall in Gateshead plays host to an attractive show in which the highly-regarded Texas-born singer/songwriter and band-leader Alejandro Escovedo is joined by renowned Italian roots band and sonic shapeshifters, Sacri Cuori.

It is an inspired coupling because both Escovedo and Sacri Cuori are anything but formulaic in their musical tastes.

Escovedo was born in San Antonio – renowned for the Spanish mission known as the Alamo but now one of America’s biggest cities – into a family that would produce several professional musicians.

Alejandro started his real musical exploration in a San Francisco punk band called the Nuns, who opened the show for the final Sex Pistols gig at the city’s Winterland venue in 1978. He moved back to Texas in the 80s – to Austin – and formed roots-rock and country-leaning bands like Rank & File and the True Believers.

He released his first couple of solo albums, Gravity and Thirteen Years, in the early 90s and later helped-out Ryan Adams and his band Whiskeytown on their Strangers Almanac album later in that decade.

Just after those sessions, Escovedo was chosen as “Artist of the Decade” by the US quarterly roots music magazine, No Depression.

After living with hepatitis-C for years, Escovedo collapsed on stage at a gig in Arizona. The recovery period was long and some of his musical friends played benefit shows for him and contributed to a tribute album, Por Vida: A Tribute to the Songs of Alejandro Escovedo.

Those friends included Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, John Cale, Jayhawks, Son Volt, Jennifer Warnes and Ian Hunter. In 2008 he released the Tony Visconti-produced Real Animal album on which all songs were co-written with Chuck Prophet. He used the same producer on the follow-up, Street Songs of Love (2010).

Last year, Escovedo issued Burn Something Beautiful, an album which brought several more of his friends into the studio. Producer Peter Buck (of REM) commented: “I’ve been a fan of Alejandro’s music for over 30 years, and recording with him was as good as I expected it to be. I think he, Scott McCaughey (fellow producer) and I really extended our vocabulary as writers and musicians, coming up with something that is unlike anything we have done individually in the past.”

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The record also includes contributions from Steve Berlin (Los Lobos), Kelly Hogan (Neko Case band) and John Moen (Decemberists). Sacri Cuori, the Italian roots band have a seriously good pedigree, too.

Their multi-layered sound is undoubtedly cinematic in its scope and ambience, conjuring images of graphic intensity. They have attracted some excellent collaborators, too, over recent years with Marc Ribot (Tom Waits), Dan Stuart (Green On Red), David Hidalgo (Los Lobos) and Howe Gelb (Giant Sand) among them.

Later in the week, on Monday night, Sage Gateshead (Hall 2) has a visit from Colin Hay (and his touring band), the man who once fronted the Aussie rockers, Men At Work.

There is something equally cinematic about his new album, Fierce Mercy (Compass Records), which is just out this week.

It is a far cry from the days of Down Under, the number one single by Men At Work (plus a series of lesser hits in the early 80s) but the Scots-born Australian has been busy ever since with over a dozen solo albums and some significant film credits to his name.

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The Sage Gateshead gig is the last of eight on his UK/Ireland tour but if 2017 is anything like last year he is going to be busier still.

Openly cited by the diverse talents of James Hetfield (Metallica) and Jeremiah Fraites (Lumineers) as an influence, Hay has also appeared at the Edinburgh festival (a three-week run), US prime-time TV shows like Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel and had the Washington Post describe him, thus: “The former Men At Work frontman has transformed into a thoughtful and sophisticated contemporary songwriter.”

Up in north Northumberland, the seaside town of Seahouses provides the intimate setting for one of the best folk duos the scene has ever produced.

Devon-based Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman have a gig at St Cuthbert’s House in the town next Thursday night, April 13.

Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman (Image: Publicity Picture)

The husband and wife pairing blends Kathryn’s stunning vocals (she plays piano and woodwind, too) with Sean’s acoustic guitar-work which is passionate, percussive and articulate but always manages to empathise with the vocals like any true accompanist should.

The pair have won the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for Best Duo twice, in 2016 and 2013, and they maintain a continuous output of original songs, often rooted in the folk-tradition but with themes that are bang up to date.

Their last two albums, Hidden People and Tomorrow Will Follow Today, both picked-up glowing reviews but given their pedigree it really should be no surprise.

Kath has been involved in several other musical activities – in the re-formed Fotheringay band and the Cecil Sharp project, for example – while Sean has played in brother Seth’s band, produced three of his albums and done other production work for the Levellers, Imelda May, Billy Bragg, Bellowhead and Show Of Hands and more.

Multi-talented John McCusker (Image: Publicity Picture)

Back on Tyneside, there is more quality folk when Sage Gateshead (Hall 2) welcomes the John McCusker band next Friday (14th) night.

With a new album, Hello, Goodbye, to showcase, the multi-talented McCusker has Andy Cutting, Adam Holmes, Innes White and Toby Shaer alongside him but his wife, Heidi Talbot, will be out front on pristine vocals.

McCusker is nominated in this year’s BBC Folk Awards – for Musician of the year. He was also a mainstay of Mark Knopfler’s band and is a core member of the Transatlantic Sessions touring ensemble.